Question about Limitations of Scaling Recipes
Hi All,
As I am new to using a scale for cooking I had a question about whether every recipe is able to be adjusted. My first instinct would be that if you scale to the primary ingredient then everything should fall in line.
Last night I used a scale for two things. I made a bordelaise sauce from Under Pressure, which I doubled, and the Chefsteps Pomme Puree, which I only used 680g of potatoes. The bordelaise was great as I'd assume scaling a sauce up or down more or less can't be ruined.
The puree though did not work at all. I ended up getting a very thing product. I put a few dollops on my plate and it eventually spread out over the entire plate. I scaled everything exactly, cooked the potatoes at 90F for 30 minutes, checked that they were cooked, put them through a food mill and then a #60 sieve. However, I couldn't even get the potatoes, that I pushed through the food mill, through the sieve. That has never happened before when I boil the potatoes. Last night I had to give up and just put the potatoes in the bowl with the milk and butter. Then I whisked it altogether and got a potato soup, haha.
For something like this, say I lost 5 grams of potato in the food mill (and honestly, that would probably be all that I could have lost as I knew it was important to leave as little behind as possible), would that be enough to ruin the final result? Did I need to cook the potatoes longer? I usually have no problem getting boiled potatoes through my sieve after the food mill, but these seemed to be different.
I understand there are a lot of factors that could have affected my results, but is this a recipe that lends itself to scaling down? Someone else seemed to have a similar problem and left a comment on about it, hence why I made sure to get everything pressed through.
One last thing, I'm not so sure I liked the sous vide approach because it does basically work or not work. I can't exactly adjust things halfway through. If I'm making a pomme puree my usually way I can adjust for things if I mess up. This was kinda like a put it altogether and lets hope it worked type thing. Anyone else feel that way about SV sometimes?
Thank you for any guidance!
